Links on a Chain

Chapter 2

To reinforce her sensual self-image, I complimented her that no matter the words about Jesus coming out of her mouth, her carnal body language spoke much louder. “Just because I don’t have a college education like you and your sister, doesn’t mean I’m a fool. Before they open their mouth, I spot the ones lusting after me. Most are down on their luck. They just want something to make them feel good, that’s all. I’m nice to them, always from a distance like a proper lady.” Between demons and angels, Amber had struck a compromise with her conscience on what constituted carnal sin. Carefully positioning the cross between her breasts, she caught a glimpse of me in the mirror gawking at her. When I lowered my eyes, she realized I was entertaining sinful thoughts.

“There aren’t many women around these parts who can afford the clothes in this magazine,” she sighed with a tint of resignation. Calling my attention to photographs of models, her expression revealed admiration and envy. “This recession is taking its toll on working gals like me. Thanks to your father, I live at the roadside rent-free. Most of my friends in town work a second job to make ends meet. All these experts on the radio and TV are saying there is plenty of money in this blessed land of ours. I haven’t seen it. Neither has any of my friends. Oh well, it’s all in the Bible. Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Truth be told, some of us have never seen years of plenty. There were times in my life when I thought I was just close to grazing in greener pastures. Oh well, the Lord is still my shepherd.”

With every breath she took after puffing on a cigarette, I imagined her aspirations of unfulfilled dreams evaporating like smoke coming out of her mouth. Coughing and holding her chest, she noticed I was shaking my head with disapproval. “Don’t judge me like I’m some kind of sinner. My nerves and my hips need these cancer sticks. As soon as I finish the pack, I won’t buy another until Sunday after church. The way I see it, for every dollar you gamble, I spend pennies on cigarettes.”

Dead-end lives, numbing boredom on the edge of town drove both of us to bad habits that Amber considered vices. She needed to feel something as much as I did; anything, other than the sounds of animals in the backyard and vehicles passing in front of the motel on Cedar Lane. Our lives intertwined with those of the motel guests were as nicotine-stained as the walls in the motel. Even after Michelle, the housekeeper, bleached the walls, the stench of cigarettes and alcohol remained part of the ambiance, much like the lives of dejected souls staying there.

Shortly after my father died of heart disease, Amber talked about giving up smoking and I pledged to stop gambling. Pointing to his portrait behind the counter, she reminded me that he was watching over us. Paintings and photographs in the lobby honor his native Norway while they adorn the faded paint on the walls. I wanted to remodel the lobby with bolder colors befitting the 1980s. Amber’s nostalgia for the 1970s prevented me. “Every time I walk in here,” she intimated in a soft voice, “I feel his spirit all through me. If you paint these walls, it’ll be like bleaching out his spirit.”

Shoving the magazine aside, she suggested we honor his memory by keeping the motel a historic site. I joked that historic sites need not be flophouses for wretched souls. “I was one of those wretched souls fifteen years ago when I found the Lord and met your father. It was right before he bought this flophouse. In a small town like this, there was plenty of gossip about a former exotic dancer like me dating a married businessman like your father. If I minded what people said behind my back, I would have gone out of my mind years ago. Thank God he didn’t sell the motel and both of us have a roof under our heads. Folks staying here sure are down on their luck, but at least the place is cheap.”

I felt guilty for taking the last dollar from people who could least afford it. Not just farmers in the southern part of the state, but northern miners from the Iron Range had a place to crash at the roadside. Squinting her eyes through a cloud of cigarette smoke, Amber defended our guests with whom she felt a special connection. “I don’t care what anybody says,” she cried out, trying to control cigarette-induced coughing. “Folks staying at the roadside are the salt of the earth. Not all, but most of them. They’re not snooty like your sister and her crowd. The Lord provides for all His children, even lambs down here at the roadside. Even when we lose everything, we keep our faith in Jesus.”

Drawing her attention to the front-page story on the local paper, I asked if Jesus could stop farm foreclosures. Already familiar with the news, she asked me not to blaspheme on the motel’s anniversary. Resigned to fate, she felt good leaving everything in God’s guiding hand. “It’s too damned depressing to think about what’s happening to some good Christian folks,” she sighed . “It takes me back to my childhood. Now, you see why I listen to Christian radio?” She turned the volume higher and extinguished the cigarette.

Vividly describing horror and salvation stories, the preacher reassured listeners that Jesus was on their side, provided they observed conservative evangelical doctrine and sent a contribution. Thanks to the voice of God coming through the mouth of the preacher, Amber felt connected to a larger spiritual family. “Say Amber, I thought salvation and prayer were free. This man sounds like he’s selling tickets to heaven. I guess the more money you send, the more salvation you receive. Hell, it’s no different than buying groceries.” Unmoved by my blasphemous sarcasm, her ears were glued to the sermon. Grateful that salvation was available on radio all day long, she relied on the sermons to fill the void in her life.

“Well beautiful, how would you like to hear all about my latest dream?” Without saying a word, she turned off the radio and put down the magazine. “Well, it seems that I was lost in heavy fog of the Valhalla valley. It was neither day nor night, just as my grandparents described it when I was young. There was no tree or flower in that valley. Not as much as a bird, or any living thing. When my father came out of the thick fog, he was wearing some sort of ceremonial military uniform. It looked like he was about to perform a ritual for Viking gods. For a devout Lutheran, he seemed at home in the company of pagan gods and heroes. I looked around but there was no way out of Asgard, no way back to Midgard world of the living. I felt endless loss and emptiness. Instead of comforting me, he reminded me that I had accomplished nothing in an unexamined life of gambling. The motel’s anniversary has me on edge, that’s all.”

Taking a sip of coffee, Amber said nothing. She gazed at the photographs, posters, and paintings on the walls and mumbled that my father was proud of his heritage. About a month after I dropped out of college, he closed the deal on the motel. Disinterested in running the motel, I had no choice as it was the only job without supervision I would ever have. “You were certainly cheerful the day he closed the deal,” I reminded Amber. “I can still remember the somber tone in his voice when he handed me the keys. He acted like a clergyman performing a ceremony. The motel keys were to open gates to Heaven. I felt like I was about to enter purgatory instead of this low-budget motel.”

In apparent disapproval, she shook her head and turned the volume on the radio even louder. Condemnatory words of the boisterous preacher warned that God will strike down evildoers when they least expect it. The more horrific the description of tormented sinners, the more animated became the preacher. “God has commanded me to speak directly to all of you out there. A Holy war is taking place right here in this great nation of ours. It’s a war between God-fearing folks and vile homosexuality, nasty feminism, and humanism threatening our way of life. Teachers, politicians and entertainers are polluting the purity of our Christian nation. God has condemned all of them into the darkness of Hell. In the name of God and His glory, you must do your part to win the spiritual war in our nation.”

Switching from apocalypse to monetary contributions, he asked those seeking forgiveness to send cash or check, and God would return the amount tenfold. If the contribution were large enough, sins were forgiven on the air. “Does this mean that if I send money, my Viking nightmares would disappear?” Ignoring my sarcastic remark, Amber lit another cigarette and took a deep puff. As though to give thanks to God, she raised her head toward the ceiling to exhale. When I remarked that religion has yet to cure her smoking addiction, she became interested in my nightmare.

“It sounds to me like your father’s spirit is trying to stop your gambling. He sure was strict with you. Around these parts, all these older European immigrant families are no different from your father. Knowing him, he’d expect you to do something nice for the motel’s anniversary. If we fill these vacancies, I may even visit his grave later in the afternoon. Just pray I don’t run into your mom. That woman will shove me right down there with him.”

When I was young, my grandfather wanted me to know that his family crossed the Atlantic in 1917 to settle in Minnesota under very difficult conditions. Only five years old, my father left with his family from a country immersed in turmoil during the First World War and Russian Revolution. Despite hardships subsisting on a small farm, my grandfather spoke nostalgically with pride about his birthplace. He insisted that Santa Claus’ first stop was in his magical Norwegian village close to the Nidelva River near Trondheim Port. Dreaming of a better life in the new world, a decade after they settled in Minnesota, they found themselves in the throes of the Great Depression.

“Did my father ever tell you that his marriage to Kristine was a business arrangement? Not that my mother complained, not so long as the Lutheran Church blessed the marriage. She obeyed her father and accepted her fate. Even so, she claimed that Norwegian women had rights much earlier than all others. Of course, my mother and her family would have none of that liberal sinning.” Listening attentively, Amber was looking at my father’s portrait on the wall. Five years since his passing, it was still difficult for her to talk about coming between him and my mother.

“Yes baby, I know all about how he married one of the richest gals in the county. It was mighty generous of her father to give the furniture business to his son-in-law. Your dad made that store the pride of southern Minnesota. Not that I could afford what he was selling in that place. There were times when I’d go in there to look at some of the fine pieces rich folks buy for their fancy homes. Mind you, I never embarrassed him in front of his customers.”

A few days after he closed the deal on the motel, he shipped a wood-carved couch from his furniture store to adorn the motel’s lobby. I tried to move it from one side of the room to the other, accidentally denting the leg. To remind me of my character flaw embodied in the dent of the couch, he refused to have it repaired. His father would have done the same with him. The austere culture and hard times of his generation molded his life to seek order and purpose in the journey toward faultlessness emanating from flawed experiences along the way. As insignificant as furniture dents appeared to him, they symbolized flaws in my character. Immersed in the abyss of nihilism, my gambling seemed to be the most satisfying escape from finding purpose he sought in life’s most inconsequential things.